


That's All

by Catzgirl



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Implied Relationships, M/M, getting back into writing after a uhhhh, just meta really, really long hiatus, this isn't any good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 09:15:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18635200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catzgirl/pseuds/Catzgirl
Summary: “I killed them,” he repeats, because it isn’t fair but it’s true, “I burned the entire house.” His face is still covered in soot, his hands still bear the soil of his own front yard, but he does not dare to wash either away.What had he thought? What was he thinking?





	That's All

**Author's Note:**

> sorry bout this.  
> this is really just me doing some character-building? character-exploration? for caleb.

They talk about it, a bit. He and Nott, Bren and Veth. At night on watch together: What would you give? To go back? To do it again? To be in the right place at the right time, to have had another dagger, to steer clear of the river?

It’s relieving to have it aired out between them. Bren and Veth have never met, but Nott and Caleb? Nott and Caleb were hobos together, were con-artist, were barely surviving. Nott and Caleb rallied the Mighty Nein, and look at how well that’s gone. 

(He likes Nott and Caleb, despite everything that led to it. He likes Nott and Caleb, and he’ll never wear Bren again, and he isn’t sure how to feel about it.) 

“ _Anything_ ,” and it’s all frown without teeth, all eyes without tears, “ _I_ _’d give all my buttons and coins. I’d give up the drink,”_ and when she stares out  beyond the trees  Caleb even believes her, “ _Anything,”_ and he thinks, ‘me too’. 

So what’s he supposed to do about it? At the end of everything, with his parents’ screaming in his ears and a charred corpse at his feet for the umpteenth time? 

What would Bren have done (and does the answer really matter?) 

* 

He kills them. He kills them himself, and it isn’t fair but it’s true. 

“ _Good,”_ Trent tells him, “ _That’s exactly right, very good indeed_ ,” but it’s hard to hear him over the echoes of Caleb’s parents’ screaming. 

It’s hard to hear anything, these days. 

“I killed them,” he repeats, because it isn’t fair but it’s true, “I burned the entire house.” His face is still covered in soot, his hands still bear the soil of his own front yard, but he does not dare to wash either away. 

What had he thought? What was he thinking? 

* 

They talk about it, briefly. He and Beau, the Empire kids—but not really, anymore. The Empire kids that the Empire forgot, that the Empire betrayed, and what would you take? If you knew you were leaving, if you knew it was never going to be what you needed, if you knew what they’d do anyway? 

“ _Everything_ ,” and she’s grinning, teeth red with her own split lip, perpetually a t least a  little bruised. “ _I_ _f I knew how it was_ _gonna_ _end?”_  In arranged kidnappings, she means. In reading for hours without learning, without enjoyment. In steeping in her not-quite- enoughness  every day, in a house where even a  shitstain  of a son would have been preferred to the daughter they got. “ _I’dve_ _taken them for what they were worth._ _I’dve_ _made them regret it,”_  and it makes his blood boil because she may not have started off the best but she has always been good, and it isn’t fair that they can’t go back and fix it. 

(This is all a long time ago and many days passed.   
This is what he thinks of as he lifts his hands, lets the magic burn through him the way he'd burned through the man at his feet but to much less fatal effect.

This is what  _happened_ , not what’s  _happening_ , and it’s important to know the difference.) 

* 

He’d been sprayed by a skunk as a boy. Caleb remembers it vividly, he remembers  _everything_ vividly, and he had waited out in the fields for forty-two minutes afterwards. He had waited until he was accustomed to the smell before going home and inflicting it on his parents. 

He does not become accustomed to the ash. The scent clings to him less like a second skin and more like a badge of horror, and it does not fade and he does not know: what had he thought? What was he thinking? 

“Traitors,” Trent’s hand is gentle on his back, stroking smooth circles that carry too much weight to be anything but cautionary, “they were traitors to the Empire. You did what you had to do.” Trent's hand is deceptively gentle and the others track it across Caleb’s shoulders, down the length of Caleb’s spine: he feels their eyes less than the dirt beneath his nails, and he feels that hardly at all.  

It is difficult to feel, with the smoke still lingering in his coat. With the flecks of cinder in his hair. There is none of him that is not hyper-aware of the grime of him, the absolute filth. 

There is none of him that knows: what had he thought? What was he thinking? 

* 

The happening is this: It occurs to him that he can, so he does. 

That’s really all that it takes: He looks down at his hands—that he doesn’t bandage anymore, hasn’t done for a long while—and he thinks, ‘What if I changed it?’ It had been his intent, at the start. ‘What if I made it different next time?’  

“Mr. Caleb,” as if something is whispering into Caduceus’ ear, and even Jester and Yasha are turning with varying states of wariness, “I would not, if you could.” 

Damn all the gods anyways; the tattletales, the cowards. There never was one for such as he. Caleb keeps his own counsel, and is the better for it. 

(He studied time-magic once under a man that liked to be over him; and he very nearly got it right. He studied time-magic once when he was a kid, a veritable idiot compared to now, and he very nearly made it practical. 

Caleb is standing, blood crusting over his cheek and the charred corpse of some nameless warrior at his feet, and he is very sure of very little but this: he does not want to be shaped into anything. He is much more interested in doing the shaping.) 

So he begins to cast. 

* 

“Astrid,” he messages, because he was supposed to be the cleverest of them and look where that’s got him, “We’ve been—fooled, we’ve been _fools_ ,” and is there a word? A phrase? Any sort of adage that can fully articulate how badly he has fucked up? “Astrid he isn’t what we thought,” she’ll hear him crying, she’ll hear him and she’ll  _know_ , “tell the others: I’m sorry,” and he has seven words to spare in the spell but any more and he risks incoherency. 

Soltryce has been his home for years. More of one, at least, than the one he burned. 

* 

It’s a loop, and it trails behind his hands like an after-image, visual feedback softly tinted that does not at all match the vicious crackle that veers into the night air. Blue and white and bright, and they’d talked about it of course. 

Just once, but still. 

They’d talked about it, sitting in silence that wasn’t overtly strenuous, sitting in silence that’s as serene as anything else Yasha ever does, and he’d had to ask; it nearly bubbled up out of him to know, because what would you give not to have lost? What would you give to get them back? 

(This is long past and in the  _happened_ , but the look in her mismatched eyes is here in the  _happening_  too. She had nodded, just once and wordless as a hurricane—just as sudden, just as decisive—and Caleb once studied alongside two other students that ended up ahead of him, he knows how to hear the screaming undercurrents of gale-force winds, how to decipher them into something approximating words. Caleb once studied with two kids, two veritable idiots compared to now, and he very nearly would have died for them; the shame is that he’s not the one that did.) 

Yasha says, “Don’t,” but Caleb, who is very sure of very little, knows she won’t put action behind it.   
If that’s not a ringing endorsement, what is? 

* 

“I should have burned you instead.” 

That’s what he tells them, when they come to take him away. Astrid’s eyes are wide over Trent’s shoulder and wasn’t he? Wasn’t he supposed to be the cleverest of them? What had he thought? What was he thinking? Why would he message her and not Eodwulf, why would he message her instead of keeping his doubts to himself, why is he broken? When he was the cleverest, when he was the favorite? 

“You’ll return to us,” Trent says, with his gentle hand smoothing the wrinkles over Caleb’s chest, down the scars of his _—Gods, no, please, I’ll do better, don’t don’t don’t_ —, “when you’re better. When you’re yourself again. 

He burned his own parents alive because Trent Ikithon told him to: it isn’t fair, but it’s true. He thinks it and cringes, a full-body contortion of joints and sinew that brings the orderlies at bruising paces—literally, with his body as the collateral. 

* 

(They don’t talk about it.   
He and Jester, he and Caduceus. They, so much more wrapped into their Gods, into the flows of time, into the ordering of chaos. Jester has knit his bones and skin; Caduceus has offered him tea grown from rotted-rebirthed-restored flesh. 

Both of them have lived and lost, but the price was discounted, the price for them was less than  _all_ , and their  _happened_ s  aren’t here in the  _happening_ s, and he is sorry for the loss of it but not sorry enough to stop and wasn’t that the start of it all anyway? 

What would Bren have done? Does the answer even matter? 

 _Everything_ and  _anything_ and one silent nod, and these are the answers he trusts.) 

* 

“You can’t,” he says, and he’s shocked by his own grit and gravel, “you can’t keep me here,” and the Matron sneers at him: “Thought you were the clever one?” 

He howls into his manacles, feels the dread on his heart as a physical thing, scents the air like a dog and smells only soot. There is none of him that is not hyper-aware of the filth of him, the grit and gravel that coats him from his toes to his very voice and how can he ever be clean again when he inhabits a body that has worn his parents’ ashes? 

(The truth is that Bren died in the fire, too. 

Bren stood and listened to his parents’ screaming and realized all at once that the universe he’d known was fish-lensed and warped. 

The other side of the glass is a different picture. The other side of the glass is a boy murdering his family. 

It’s Bren in his front yard digging his fingers into the soil and laying himself to rest.) 

* 

There’s screaming, beneath the crackling. Caleb has wrought this sort of magic before, but never to this level. Caleb was a boy the last time the past went reeling between his palms like so much parchment, like one of his fireballs. Caleb didn’t even exist the last time these hands wove this spell. Burned hair and charred meat in the air, and there’s a boy inside of him whimpering—the truth is that there has _always_ been a scared little boy inside of him, still whimpering and calling for his mum and dad. He’ll make it better next time. He’ll make it cleaner and easier, next time. 

But, gods be damned, at what cost? 

“Caleb.” 

 _Don’t look, don’t look, don’t you dare_ , and that’s the boy in Caleb, that’s Bren trying to get out and go home and make it all right, but Caleb is the person casting the spell and Caleb is the man that’s here because of Bren’s stupid fucking mistakes and what had Bren even been thinking? What had he thought was going to happen? 

Caleb is the one that looks, that admires the blue-white across Fjord’s face, that says, “please,” without really knowing what he’s asking for. 

 _Anything_  and  _everything_ and one silent nod, but he and Fjord talked about it once, just briefly and just the once because what if? What if you could go back, walk in a little earlier, a little more prepared, what if you could have stayed out of the water? What would you give to change it?

Fjord had cocked his head at him, easy affection with his affable smile, and if people look at him and see only a half orc? If people look at the height and girth of him, at his tree-trunk chest and sailor’s legs and callused hands and they miss the clever-bright spark of his eyes? 

Well, more’s the pity. 

“Nothin’,” he said, ran the glossy backs of his claws down Caleb’s chest just to enjoy the shiver it prompted, “not a damn thing. ‘s worth it, for this,” and pressed a soft kiss to the crown of Caleb’s head— 

 _Bren Aldric was what they named him,_ ** _Flame_** _and_ ** _Ruler_ ** _, and what had they thought? What had they been thinking, peasants that they were, holding their newborn and giving him the name_ ** _Fire Prince_ ** _?_  

 _It stings, how much they’d loved him. How they’d worked to send him to Soltryce._  

 _How he’d repaid them; a tyrant with a crown of flames in all the ways they never expected._  

—as Caleb arched into the touch. He was skeptical and showed it, brushed the scar at Fjord’s mouth with his thumb and then his own lips, murmured, “All of it? The Iron Shepherds? Trostenwold?” He pulls back a bit, says as very softly as he can, “Vandren?” 

A frown, which he’s earned. “What’s going on, Caleb?” 

(This is the  _happening_ , now. The rest is all done and past days and moons ago, is the  _happened_ , but this is the  _now_ , and how arrogant is he to blur that line? How selfish and stupid is he to spread the sequence of their pasts between his palms like so much parchment? Like one of his fire balls?

 _Exactly enough_ , a boy’s voice answers in the back of his mind.) 

Fjord steps over the still-smoking body that Caleb can still smell; does not move to touch him but holds their gaze. 

“Darlin’,” and Caleb shuts his eyes because he is selfish and stupid as he’d been when he was Bren, but he can’t do this if he has to watch clever-bright spark in Fjord’s eyes turn. “Don’t do this to me.” 

* 

The first time Trent had visited had been the second time Trent had visited. 

It makes sense if you pay attention: 

“Bren,” and Caleb’s body rails against the strange man—muscle memory, his head is too cloudy for memory-memory, but the man doesn’t seem to mind. He stands in the doorway with eyes that are crueler than the orderlies, than the Matron, and says that name again: “Bren, do you remember me?” 

 _Don’t_ _don’t_ _don’t_ _, I’ll do better, please, no, Gods_  

“My name,” he says, fingers spasming at his shoulders against the jacket’s restraints, “Is Caleb.” 

The man’s grin is cheshire, is predatory, is sparking Caleb’s fight-or-flight, and what new fresh hell is this? What new game, entertainment for the orderlies, for the Matron? 

 _Get it out get it out get it out_  

His arms shake in their bindings, itching in the space between his scars, in the very bones of him. “Who-” and he can’t even ask, throat seizing with the urge to scream, but where’s it coming from? The sourceless-ness of his terror only serves to increase it, and he shakes where he sits on the bare floor, stutters, "who," a second time before giving it up completely.

The man’s grin is everything he wants to run from, but his voice is gentle when he says, “You’re getting better—that's good. Expected. Exactly as I wanted.” 

He leaves when Caleb throws himself bodily into the nearest wall, howling and writhing and trying- trying-  _trying his fucking best_  to remember why this man haunts the periphery of his waking nightmares, snarling at the orderlies when they come to sedate him because he  _must remember_ , there must be a source to this blind fear, there must be a memory beyond these walls, except that there isn't or at the very least it is out of his grasp.

And that’s the last time anyone visits him until the nurse that sees the charm and sets him free. 

* 

He’s no better for the knowing. 

Caleb Widogast burned his parents alive because a man told him too; it’s not fair but it’s true. 

“I just,” and the blue-white-shrieking between his palms starts to fade as his eyes open; Fjord is calling him  _darling_ in all the accents he possesses, and Caleb’s never had any sort of defense for that, “I want them back. That is all.” 

Fjord moves forward with all the care of a man who knows what he’s dealing with. If anyone looks at Fjord and sees only his filed tusks, sees only the tips of his claws, sees only the scars quirking his lip and eye? 

More’s the pity to anyone who doesn’t bask in the warmth of his smile. Who doesn’t know the feel of those careful calluses on their bare skin. Who doesn’t have memorized the exact texture of the grey streak of hair that Fjord is perpetually huffing out of his eyes. 

(Bren never knew these things. Bren had Astrid and Eodwulf, unstoppable and inseparable. 

Bren had his own life; look what’s come of it. 

 _It would be different, next time. I would do better, next time._  

But that’s the gamble, isn’t it? And, gods, at what cost?) 

Fjord rumbles, “I know, sweetheart, I know you do,” and closes the distance between them. There’s a chill in his armor from frost that’s since shattered off, but Caleb fits exactly under Fjord’s chin. He balls his hands over Fjord’s chest, lets the latent heat warm them both as Fjord gently rocks them into something resembling calm. 

It wouldn't be any different. He would be the same boy, with a man that shouldn't be over anyone ruling his every move.

He'd been a child; it's not fair, but it's true, and it would still be true for all the dunamancy in the world.

“Um,” Jester says, “I only mean to interrupt a little bit,” and, yeah, that’s fair, that’s the shape of his life with this bunch, “but did Caleb just try to kill us? Or what was happening with the big hocus-pocus-screaming-light-show?” 

He doesn’t have to look to know the exact expressions on Yasha’s and Caduceus’ faces, but Caduceus is the one to respond, “Yeah, maybe. Possibly. Probably not exactly, but the effect? Good thing it didn’t work.” 

He’s shaking, and Fjord rubs his back, says, “Easy now, I got you,” but Caleb’s lived enough of his life holding his laughter back, so he tips his head back for the kiss he knows is waiting for him.  

And then he just lets it out. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i just had two WIPs lying around and wanted to finish them both, so I did a c-c-c-comboooooo and threw them together.


End file.
